Walter Jeffries Matherly Jr. died at home in Urbana, Illinois on September 29.

A memorial service will be held on Friday, October 4 at 4 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church, 309 West Green Street, Urbana, Illinois.

Walter was born in 1930 in Gainesville, Florida to Walter Jeffries Matherly and Enid Putnam Matherly. He had one sister, Eleanor Corbin.

Walter graduated from Gainesville High School, the University of Florida, and Duke University. He served in the Korean War.

He married Mary Lou Kelly in 1954 and they have four sons: Jeff (Valerie Browne), Steven (Vicki Feigin), Robert (LiYung Kuan), and Michael (Tanya Beeren).

The family lived overseas in South Africa, Panama, and Puerto Rico while Walter worked with the Borden Foods Company. When they returned to the United States, Walter worked at the Research Triangle Institute in Durham, NC and for the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, DC. He moved to Boston where he worked for Boston University and Harvard University, and most recently for the Woods Hole Research Center. He married Copenhaver Cumpston in 1983; they have a daughter, Sarah.

The family moved to California in 1990, and to Urbana, Illinois in 1996. There, after his career as a finance administrator, Walter retired to his true avocations of writing, translation, storytelling, calligraphy, history, and community rabble rousing. His friends regard Walter as a true original, a renaissance man with many enthusiasms.

He leaves his five children, wife Cope, seven grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

Contributions can be made to Champaign County Health Care Consumers, 44 East Main Street, Suite 208, Champaign, IL 61820; www.healthcareconsumers.org

The family is collecting memories at http://dubbymatherly.blogspot.com